Rising Tide North America and Carbon Trade Watch would like you to join us on the October 24th day of global climate action to spread the word about the biggest financial scam in history – Carbon Trading.

In order to stabilize the climate before billions of people around the world suffer the consequences, it is imperative that carbon-trading schemes are stopped and real, democratically determined solutions are implemented.

We cannot afford to waste any more valuable time and resources relying on such market-driven strategies to deliver science-based goals (such as 350 ppm of CO2) when so many lives and livelihoods are at stake. If we truly wish to protect people and planet, then we must put climate justice before corporate profits.

However, first and foremost, we need to dispel the misguided notion that carbon trading has anything at all to do with climate change mitigation, or the present and future wellbeing of our communities.

We are proud to announce the launch of www.350reasons.org – a website presenting 350 reasons why carbon trading will not serve to stabilize the climate. You can submit your own reasons for opposing carbon trading via a web-form on this site. We will release the full 350 reasons next week.

Carbon Trading prevents the world’s largest historical debt from being paid. The world’s major polluting corporations owe this debt to poor, frontline communities around the world – communities that contribute the least to, and suffer the lion’s share of the impacts of climate change.

Carbon Trading allows corporations to finance or create carbon dumps in the Developing World while continuing to emit toxic climate pollution in the backyards of working poor, Indigenous and people of color communities in Developed Countries.

Carbon Trading impedes democratic governance by allowing corporate polluters, market managers, and commodity traders to determine whether and where to reduce greenhouse gases and toxic co-pollutants without allowing frontline communities to participate in those decisions.

Carbon Trading perpetuates subsidies and support for major industrial polluters such as big oil and energy companies, and creates new financing for bogus corporate solutions such as clean coal, safe nuclear, bio-fuels and waste incineration – adding more polluting smokestacks in the backyards of already-burdened communities

The purpose of this project is to articulate the need for an entirely different approach to climate change solutions. The international day of action serves as an important platform to remind us that we share a common purpose. However, science-based targets such as 350 ppm (The safe upper limit of CO2 in the atmosphere) are meaningful only in the context of social and economic guidelines that define a pathway for “climate justice”.

A justice-based approach recognizes the fact that there is no “silver bullet” solution to climate change and accommodates the full diversity of strategies required by communities to democratically determine the sustainable use of their energy resources.

A durable climate justice solution needs to be:

* Guided by principles of equity and economic justice.
* Democratically determined and guided by the frontline communities and workers most impacted.
* Locally appropriate and locally managed. This inevitably means that local communities are empowered to design, implement and manage solutions that are uniquely suited to its needs.
* Free from the influence and control of the major climate polluters

How You Can Help

* Organize a Climate Justice action or meeting in your neighborhood
* Write a blog post or letter to your local media about the carbon trading scam
* Distribute this message, stickers and pamphlets to your friends and networks
* Join our facebook page and invite your friends to do so
* Let your local elected officials know why you oppose carbon trading